La investigación denominada “Automating the creation of VR experiences as learning pills for the construction sector” fue desarrollada por el académico Felipe Muñoz La Rivera, en conjunto con Javier Mora, María Jesús Bopp y Cayetano Sierra del International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering de la Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (España). Esta fue presentada en el International Conference of Educational Innovation in Building.

El resumen (ENG) de la investigación es el siguiente:

Construction 4.0 is pushing the digitization of the construction sector. The use of new technologies forces a reflection on teaching methods. Virtual reality (VR) is one of the most exciting technologies that can be used to provide a new kind of training. It allows the recreation of highly realistic virtual environments, achieving first-person immersion and interaction. However, a simple virtual representation might not be enough. Many other benefits can be gained by incorporating gamification and storytelling, primarily to engage learners and ease a deeper understanding of content. This research analyses how VR enriched with gamification and storytelling can provide a more effective construction training, taking advantage of the BIM resources as hyper-realistic scenarios from high detailed building models, and resources from the entertainment industry. Additionally, the aim is to generate a complete framework to create VR experiences by non-expert users. As a validation case, a set of tools and a demonstrator have been developed to create a VR version of "Escape Room" to teach safety to construction workers.

El Proyecto se enmarca en el línea de trabajo de la interacción entre entornos BIM y realidad virtual, en particular, con un enfoque hacia la innovación en los métodos de enseñanza y capacitación en entornos de realidad virtual.